Stopping and Pausing (But Still They Blog, 11)

Why does a blogger pause (which I’ll define as not blogging for at least four months) or stop altogether? I’m certain the most common reason is premature blogging, that is, starting a blog before you really know whether you have much to say. I suspect other reasons are all over the map, with the second largest probably running out of steam or losing interest (or, these days, finding that saying what you have to say is easier and faster on Twitter, FaceBook or FriendFeed).

A fair number of libloggers stopped between mid-2007 and mid-2008, or at least paused for so long that they don’t have any posts—at least 13% of those with enough impact to make it into But Still They Blog and probably more than that among the broader liblog population. Some returned; many didn’t.

What follows is a sampling of posts on why people have stopped or paused blogging—or, in some cases, the fateful final posts that don’t appear intended to be final. Included are some “haven’t been blogging much lately” posts.

In Case It’s Not Obvious…

This 319-page trade paperback provides a sweeping look at liblogs (blogs created by library people but, generally, not blogs that are official library publications), with trends, facts, figures, graphs, and profiles for each of 521 liblogs. It continues the most comprehensive detailed look at liblogs (or any category of blogs) that I know of, showing measurable characteristics and how they’re changing over the years.

After the introductory section above, this chapter consists of quotes from blogs and comments on those quotes. Portions, in somewhat different form, may appear in the January 2010 Cites & Insights.

Profiled Blogs

The chapter includes profiles for these liblogs, mentioned in Chapter 11 and not previously profiled.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 13th, 2009 at 11:44 am and is filed under Liblogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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2 Responses to “Stopping and Pausing (But Still They Blog, 11)”

I stopped blogging on this particular site as the job was done. I started without 101 tips in place, and worked on it over a period of months. Looking back on it, it was a job worth doing. It started as a book project which fell at the last hurdle, so I decided to use the materials for a blog.
Since then, I’ve moved into further education, undertaken a teaching post-grad qualification and now work in learning technologies. I still keep an eye on the library world and what’s going on.
Nice blog here!

Sometimes blogs end because the end was planned from the beginning. So, for example, 101 tips for school librarians posted #101 on April 18, 2008. The project was done, and the blog has remained as a resource. The goal of the blogger was to pass along 101 tips by June 2008; he finished two months early.

*All Cites & Insights PDF ebooks are explicitly site-licensed for
mounting on a library's server and providing to authenticated users. That
includes The Gold OA Landscape 2011-2014, A Library Is..., Beyond the
Damage and any others.